The National Affairs Desk of Glorious Noise

I think talk of impeaching the President has mostly been folly. As mentioned earlier today, the American public got their fill of that ugly process in 1998 when the GOP set out to destroy the man they couldn't beat: Bill Clinton. And so I am hesitant to get behind any call for Bush's impeachment as I see it as mostly an exercise in futility. That may have just changed.

In his latest article for the New Yorker, Sy Hersh says that "the single most explosive element" of the article is the fact that President Bush has been funneling money (a LOT of money) to violent Sunni groups in Iraq as a way to balance the influence of Iranian aligned Shiites. What's worse is that funds have ended up in the hands of "three Sunni jihadist groups" who are "connected to al Qaeda" but "want to take on Hezbollah."

True to Bush's style, this has all been done without the consultation or consent of Congress. As Hersh put it, "We are simply in a situation where this president is really taking his notion of executive privilege to the absolute limit here, running covert operations, using money that was not authorized by Congress, supporting groups indirectly that are involved with the same people that did 9/11."

If true, then calling Bush a "criminal" is no longer hyperbole, it's accurate.